Web page code is generally written in HTM or XHTML. CSS is used for styling.
W3C sets the standards for the various types of code that web pages may be written in.
Writing web pages to W3C industry standards Validation of web pages is important for three main reasons:
* Web pages load faster when the code is valid;
*Web pages almost always look as intended, regardless of of which browser is used;
*Search engines are more inclined to index pages that are written in valid code.
When the page markup has bad code, in addition to slower loading, the pages are likely to NOT look as intended when viewed in some browsers.
The W3C definitions of HTML and XHTML do not include the elements used to embed flash into a page. As well as several other common web elements, mostly used by sloppy coders.
There is a way to pass validation with flash objects. The flash objects must be hidden inside a javascript container. We try to avoid that.
Another method involves creating a custom DTD. The non-standard elements being used are added to a W3C DTD.
However, W3C does not validate pages with custom DTD's, and so a W3C validation icon may NOT be displayed on the page. We do not use custom DTDs.
When we design web pages with flash, the page will have valid code except for the embed elements. The page will not validate due to the flash.
The page will still look as intended across major browsers.
A little flash will not be detrimental to your chances of being indexed by search engines.
Search engine bots prefer a page with good structure, just like you'd prefer to read an article written in proper grammar and punctuation, rather than read something written in gibberish. Search engine bots do not require an absolute adherence to using valid code.
Using valid code is to your advantage.
Advantages Of Using CSS
Using CSS speeds up load time, especially when you have mutliple pages.
Using seperate CSS files, instead of inline CSS, makes creating sites larger than 1 page easier, because the syle of each page does not have to written into each page individually.
The CSS file is simply called for in one line of each page's code.
So CSS also reduces the file size of every web page the CSS file is used in conjunction with.
That speeds up each page's load time, especially useful when a site is larger than 1 page, because the CSS remains loaded in the visitor's brower cache and only needs to be downloaded once into the browser, regardless of the number of pages.
Multiple CSS files download simultaneously because the browser allows multiple connections to each sever as connections are made to view thw page, making pages load faster.
W3C web industry standards for CSS file size is 8kb.
CSS files larger than 8kb will not fail validation for that reason alone, but the file size will generate a warning message when you validate the page at W3C's online CSS validator. It is to your advantage to use CSS files less than 8kb in size.
